The latest “rule” about the “new economy” and the “new job market” (or, rather, on how to take advantage of the economic downturn by becoming an entrepreneur) seems to be: “get ahead by breaking the rules”.
I’ve always found that advice to be a bit suspect or a bit too “convenient”, overshadowing the role that luck and selective memories often play.
Of course, that’s not to suggest that we don’t benefit from the “learning opportunity” of missteps, whether due to breaking the rules or not. However, when it comes to rules, sometimes the “learning” is that some rules aren’t meant to be broken in a willy-nilly way. Read more »
In this fast-changing world of ours, decisiveness is clearly the name of the game.
In the book “Blink” by Malcolm Gladwell, we learn that those with expertise in a particular subject matter can be quite accurate in their quick instinctual gut reactions to certain claims or situations.
And, conversely, those without expertise in a particular area of focus generally don’t fair so well with this kind of quick decision-making. Hence, the phrase “rushing to judgment” doesn’t have such a positive connotation.
“Decisiveness is a characteristic of high-performing men and women. Almost any decision is better than no decision at all.” ~Brian Tracy
So, what do we make of this common advice that: “making any decision is better than making no decision?” We could all probably readily agree that it is true that inaction, like procrastination, has let many high-potential projects go uncompleted or forever remain un-started. But should that really be the only criteria we are considering here? Read more »
It’s my pleasure to introduce you to Greg Hayes from Live Fit Blog. In today’s guest post, Greg shares some great advice on the key ingredient needed to get healthy – advice that can easily be applied to making changes in all areas of our lives.
Note: Greg is one of the great people I’ve met through fellow blogger, Josh Hanagarne of World’s Strongest Librarian. Josh is really building up a great network of like-minded readers (with an intriguing range of interests) via the openness of his blog, his guest blogging and commenting.
After reading this post, be sure to visit Live Fit Blog and World’s Strongest Librarian at any time for more (or just to say “hello”). We always enjoy reading any and all comments you’d like to share.
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Why Change? – A Guest Post by Greg Hayes
Most of us can probably agree that we should be paying more attention to our health. Turn on the news at any given time of day, and you’re apt to hear someone debating this subject. Inevitably, the discussion turns to obesity and its contribution to rising healthcare costs.
Seven years ago, I could have been their poster child. By any metric, I was obese. Not that I saw myself that way. Read more »
For me, one of the best things about the internet is meeting people that you probably wouldn’t have otherwise met. One such person, who I’d like to introduce you to, is Josh Hanagarne (pictured below), writer of the blog: World’s Strongest Librarian.
I first “discovered” Josh via a guest post he had written for Problogger. I’ve since come to love his writing style. He is a great storyteller. He’s funny and smart and not afraid to share his personal side, too. He has an equally intriguing set of readers that regularly leave thoughtful comments on his posts (which he freely replies to, as well).
I’m proud to share the following guest post that I asked Josh to write as part of the Guest Post Ultra-Marathon he has embarked on. Let me/us know how you like it.
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Two Questions To Ask Yourself Before Making A Difficult Decision – A Guest Post by Josh Hanagarne
By the time a person with an average respiration rate is fifteen years old, they’ve typically taken upwards of 150,000,000 breaths. Of course, when you’re panicked, you breathe more than usual—like when you’re faced with questions, problems, and dilemmas that don’t have easy answers.
But before you start sucking wind and saying, “Oh man oh man oh man what do I do?” there are two questions you can ask yourself that will guide you—provided you can actually answer these questions. Read more »
Recently another couple of people I know unexpectedly lost their jobs and joined the ranks of the temporarily unemployed, not by choice, nor due to poor performance, but quite simply due to their company’s decision to re-organize its structure and strategy.
True, it really isn’t anything new that companies reorganize or merge or go out of business. It really does happen all the time. Unfortunately, we just happen to be in a time when a lot of this is happening to a lot of people at the same time, thus making it that much more noticeable to everyone.
Losing a job (that you may or may not have loved) no longer seems to be something that only happens to other people. The possibility of this happening to any one of us, or to someone we know, just seems to be that much more of a real possibility than ever before.
This makes me think of a favorite Mary Engelbreit artwork quote of mine:
“Life is 10% what happens to you and
90% what you do with what happens to you.” Read more »
The current financial crisis has certainly made many people re-think their way of doing things. I would expect that those hardest hit by a sudden, severe, and unexpected shock would most likely be the first to change their ways. But, for how long?
The degree and amount of change will certainly depend on how hard hit such individuals and their loved ones have been by this financial crisis, as well as their ability to recover from it, what and how much has been lost, and what is still at risk of being lost.
And, what about those of us that are still in pretty good financial shape and are not being forced to change due to circumstance, will we still change some of our habits based on a reawakened awareness to the realities of risk and uncertainty? Read more »
Physical product over-consumption clearly hasn’t been good for our environment nor for our pocketbooks, but, is enough being said about service-sector over-consumption, too?
Do we really need to hire someone to regularly clean our homes or take care of our lawns, have a personal assistant or personal shopper, pay frequent visits to a chiropractor, get pedicures and manicures, or massages, or attend expensive seminars, multiple times per year?
Once we are used to the convenience (and benefits) of these kinds of service-sector amenities, and we see our neighbors and co-workers indulging in them, they are hard to give up. Plus, these things are important for the health of our service-sector economy, too, right?
What if we can learn to be happy with or without spending money? Maybe knowing that we could easily give up those kinds of things, if necessary, would be a good skill to acquire? As Suze Orman has suggested, what if we only spend money on things that we can truly afford to and not spend money when are only able to afford things on a paycheck-to-paycheck basis? Read more »
These days it seems almost impossible to avoid reading, seeing, or hearing news reports about the current economic crisis.
I, personally, am not one of the people that can honestly adopt the mantra of: “I refuse to participate in this recession.”
Instead, I try to listen, understand, consider, and learn. I’ve even been considering whether or not I need to re-consider some of my existing beliefs. The jury is still out on that.
Most recently I’ve been thinking about some of the different ”personality types” that I’ve encountered regarding money, three of which include the following:
Read more »
It’s the first day of a new year, a time when there is much talk about making New Year’s Resolutions. There are many people with advice on: how to do it right; on whether or not any of the resolutions we do make will even last very long; or whether it even matters any more to make resolutions at all.
What made it easier for me this year was that I had already spent the past month or so, with pen and paper, figuring out what I wanted to do differently for the upcoming “unprecedented” economic environment that we’ve been told awaits us.
Yes, I agree, for me and maybe for many of us, this will be a year of going back to basics.
Read more »
Often the most important advice given to bloggers, writers, or anyone in social media (and probably in business, too) is to be helpful.
Whether you believe in good karma or not, it is not often disputed that if you are helpful to others without expecting anything in return, you’ll be surprised at what does come back to you in return. If your intent is the opposite, you may still get results, but more than likely not the same as if you did otherwise.
For me, the tricky part is in knowing what other people find helpful. Being helpful means different things to different people. There are many ways to be helpful.
I would say that the extremes on the ’scale of helpfulness’, if you will, would probably range from being totally selfless to being totally selfish. If helpfulness were put on a scale, I would put the following fifteen ticks on that ruler (generally ranked here from better to worse, though I’m sure some of you might re-arrange the order somewhat):
Read more »
The latest “rule” about the “new economy” and the “new job market” (or, rather, on how to take advantage of the economic downturn by becoming an entrepreneur) seems to be: “get ahead by breaking the rules”. 